Anna M. Evans

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Control Freak-Out

Now listen, I’m your Smart TV.
It’s clear you’re not as smart as me.
You’re also short and plump. Though big,
I’m still as slender as a twig.
No buttons spoil my glossy screen,
which pushes yours, as I have seen.
Honey, you’re meant to talk to me,
your understanding Smart TV.

And yet you stutter so, and mumble
words and phrases in a jumble.
I have to use approximation—
you weren’t expecting Pro Snack Nation?
What’s more, if stuck from time to time
on Hulu, or far worse, on Prime,
while wanting MSNBC,
honey, don’t blame your Smart TV,

when you’re so stupid (or day-dreaming?)
you don’t know if I’m live or streaming.
At least your children have a clue
when you call them to rescue you.
I’ve heard you have an MFA
(which didn’t groom you for today).
Honey, you’d need a PhD
at least, to best your Smart TV.

Anna M. Evans currently teaches poetry at West Windsor Art Center and English at Rowan College at Burlington County. Her books include her latest chapbooks, The Quarantina Chronicles (Barefoot Muse Press, 2020) and The Unacknowledged Legislator (Empty Chair Press, 2019), along with Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic (Able Muse Press, 2018), and her sonnet collection, Sisters & Courtesans (White Violet Press, 2014). She is the Board President of the Poetry by the Sea Conference and the editor of the online poetry journal for women formalists, Mezzo Cammin.